Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Annihilation' (2018)

This movie was simply amazing. I can certainly add it to my "must watch" list, and while it's not really in my top 10, I could at least estimate it in my top 15. It has a few minor flaws, but overall, it's a really solid movie up to Hollywood standards (though I sometimes think I give Hollywood too much credit).

The setting was everything in this movie. Like Alien and Aliens, this movie deeply relied on the set to immerse the audience and impress upon them the atmosphere. Everything is visually stunning to the levels of Crimson Peak. Like Crimson Peak this movie gives the sensation that the environment is alive. That it's just as much a character as the rest of the cast. This might explain why they felt the need to over layer the characters with needless background. They may have wanted as much life from each character as they got from the set. However, it get to the point it's beyond reason and winds up detracting from the movie. It becomes needless padding that was simply unjustifiable with the plot. So and so is a junkie, so and so lost her child, blah blah blah rough childhood. None of it was necessary because it had nothing to do with the plot. Moreover, a military operation would not allow a group of five clearly unstable or unhinged individuals to lead a classified expedition. The rest of my issues here will have to wait 'til the spoilers.

Outside of the needless character padding, the plot was excellent and the premise very interesting to the point of being captivating. All I wanted to do was learn more about the shimmer. They could easily turn this into a mini series and I'd watch the fuck out of it. The acting is of course, amazing. They spared no expense on fantastic actors. And if you couldn't tell from my description of the atmosphere, the mesh of practical and CGI FX are stunning.

You really must watch this movie.

SPOILERS!!!

Why the fuck does it matter that Lena cheated on her husband? They tried to use it as her motivation to get placed on the expedition into the shimmer, but why? She has military training, she's a molecular biologist, and she's kind of a perfect candidate without even having the background of her husband's involvement. Furthermore, if they really felt it was necessary to include a secondary motivation, finding a way to save her husband was more than enough. As a multi-dimensional character, that's fair. That's good motivation. She's not just doing it for the science, she's doing it for someone she loves. But then she goes into this "I owed him," bullshit, because she blames herself for him being on the mission before hers, because she drove him off by cheating on him. What the fuck do we need that for?! It is pointless padding and overly complicates the character to the point of being nonsense.

Lastly, the time wasted on flashbacks in this movie could have been used to cover more of what happened to Dr. Ventress when she left the rest of the party. Instead they just dump us off with what happened to her.

There's a detail they eluded too that I thought was too obvious. The lead character Lena doesn't have a tattoo. The mistake they made here is that they showcase the fact that she doesn't have a tattoo right before they showcase the fact that she suddenly has a tattoo. These scenes are back to back and she even hints towards the damn thing in the scene where she suddenly has a tattoo. Subtlety is important. This was not at all subtle. At least not to me. Now you know something's up, and you know Lena isn't exactly who she says she is, but there's a couple open possibilities. I'd say they didn't outright ruin the movie with this slip, but it came close.

So where does the tattoo come from? Later on in the movie, you see the same tattoo on Anya. So, perhaps Lena gets the tattoo from Anya at some point later in the movie? The shimmer is mutagenic so maybe at some point Lena just gets it from Anya almost like a creeping tattoo. As it turns out the tattoo explains the whole movie's ending. Lena's is trying to get to the center of the shimmer so she can find a cure for her husband Kane back at base. But she discovers at the center of the shimmer that Kane died there. The person that came out of the shimmer is not her husband, Kane. Lena is not Lena. During the end of the movie Lena comes into contact with an alien life form that attempts to emulate her. When it emulates her, it fails to emulate her properly and develops Anya's tattoo. While you think the ending is Lena blowing up the alien life form with a sulfur grenade, it's actually the alien life form transferring itself into Lena. What was blown up may just have been a shell.

I don't want you to take these as reasons not to watch this movie. It really is quite amazing as a movie. I highly recommend it as a must see.